The invention disclosed herein relates to toy mold systems usable by children, toy kits including the toy mold systems, and molded toy figures. More particularly, the present invention relates to improved toy mold systems which allow children to make highly detailed molded toy figures. The invention is applicable for use with many types of molding materials which may be introduced into the mold system in solid or liquid form.
Toy mold systems, molding materials or compounds and toy ovens which allow children to make molded toy figures are presently available individually and in kits. For example, Toymax Inc. currently sells such items separately and in kits under its CREEPY CRAWLER.RTM. trademark. In general, the kits contain one or more squeeze bottles of plastisol molding material in one or more colors, one or more toy mold systems into which the molding material may be poured, and a toy oven for curing the molding material from a flowable form to a solid form. In the CREEPY CRAWLER.RTM. line of toys, the molding material is a liquid plastisol sold under the trademark PLASTI-GOOP.RTM. which remains flexible after it solidifies. The molding material, however, may be any plastic-based chemical composition suitable for use by children, such as a thermoplastic or thermoset plastic. Although such mold systems, which have been and are presently commercially successful, enable children to mold a wide range of figures and objects like insects, play jewelry, etc., and provide high play value for children, they are open mold systems typically consisting of only a single open mold section, and therefore are not intended for molding highly detailed figures such as vehicle bodies.
The popularity of toy mold systems was and is based not only on the fun children have in using them to make the molded toy figures but also in the enjoyment children receive from having and playing with the toy figures. However, the toy mold systems and toy mold kits heretofore available, while providing a high play value for children in the molding of toy objects, did not provide nearly as high a play value for the children in playing with the molded toy figures. One reason for this is that children heretofore have not been able to make toy figures with detailing comparable to commercially molded toy figures. The greater the amount of detailing on a molded toy figure, the more interesting and realistic the figure is and the more fun to play with. For example, a molded toy car would be more interesting to play with if it not only had the general contour of a car but also contained some of the more detailed features of a car, such as fenders, headlights, taillights, door handles, license plates, rocker panels, etc.
A prior art toy closed mold system previously sold under the mark "Johnny Toymaker" for forming miniature toy car bodies comprised two mold sections, a top section and a bottom section, which formed a closed mold system. The two mold sections together formed a cavity without undercuts that completely defined the car body. Different sets of mold sections were available for molding toy car bodies. However, because the mold sections lacked undercuts, the toy car bodies molded by this toy correspondingly lacked detail as compared to commercially made miniature toy cars. To provide detail, separate parts such as bumpers which might include grills were glued to the molded parts, which presented certain disadvantages. However, molded car bodies with detailed features adhered thereto may not be as realistic as industrially molded miniature toy cars, because it may be difficult for a child to precisely align the detailed features and to cleanly glue them to the molded car body, especially small detailed features. Further, detailed features adhered to the molded car body may move or separate from the car body over time or with use.
To avoid such problems associated with attaching additional pieces to add detail to a toy figure, it would be preferable to provide children with the capability of creating molded toy figures already containing a desired level of detailing. However, a problem arises in that some detailing in the molded toy figure consists of projections and recesses which are perpendicular to the angle of draw, i.e., the direction in which the mold is opened. These types of projections and recesses in the molded toy figure, often called "undercut sections," can lock onto the corresponding recesses or projections, i.e., the undercuts, in the walls of a mold section when an attempt is made to lift the molded figure from the mold system. Therefore, while it is desirable to provide as simple a toy mold system as possible for use by children, such simple toy mold systems did not have the capability of molding detailed toy objects.
Thus, providing a toy mold system capable of molding detailed toy objects presents a formidable problem in that the objectives of a simple mold system and molding highly detailed figures compete against each other. Any undercuts in a toy mold system make it difficult if not impossible to remove the molded figure from the mold without tearing the undercut sections or bending or distorting the shape of the molded figure, and any toy mold system with undercuts adds to the complexity of the mold system. Therefore, it was generally not feasible to include undercuts in conventional toy mold systems unless the figure was sufficiently flexible so that it could be removed from a mold system having undercuts by flexing the figure. However, the play value of many toy figures, such as miniature cars, is higher if the figure is rigid, as a real car is.
Miniature toy cars can have immense play value when they are replicas of real cars, particularly vintage or popular models, and particularly when a child amasses a collection of the cars. However, because miniature cars having such detail were previously only available as completed units made industrially, collecting them was expensive. Also, any toy mold system which may provide sufficient detail in a molded figure might not be very useful if it could only make one figure. In other words, for the toy mold system to be useful, it should be able to mold a number of different figures, e.g., model cars. To applicants' knowledge, no such toy mold system was heretofore available.
The present invention provides the heretofore missing play value of a toy mold system which can be used to mold toy figures containing greater detail but which is still relatively simple and inexpensive, and easy for children to use, and which may be used to produce toy figures of different shapes and details.